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Our dingy was slowly making its way to the island we had spotted from our sailing boat. My brother and I were sailing with our dad through the Adriatic sea that autumn of 2010, and we had decided to anchor for the night somewhere in the entrance to the Bay of Kotor. The Bay, less travelled at that time of the year, is home to several tiny islands that seem uninhabited and feel so attractive to me. So that night we were mooring near one of those islands, and having nothing else to do on the boat, we decided my brother and I to go explore it. I remember the dark green vegetation that covered the island and the silence which emanated from it. As we were approaching the shore, we were searching for houses or any sign of life, but found nothing else but trees and ferns, and the sound of the wind blowing through them. We spotted though a small concrete pier, proof that at some point, there must have been a human presence on that island. Shortly after setting foot on land, we clearly realized that the island had been abandoned: a few collapsed straw huts were disseminated here and there, and we also found the rests of what was once a store, a restaurant and an amphitheater, all covered with grass. Looking more closely on the ground, we even found old tags, boxes of sunscreen and plastic bags, looking like new, with a logo: CLUB MED. Here was the explanation. The island was once home to a Club Med village, the flagship of French tourism industry back in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, an “all inclusive” resorts chain with facilities all over the world, where clients are called “GM” (gracious members) and the staff “GO” (genteel organizers). In those holiday villages, no money flows (GM pay their drinks with beads) and all kind of activities are offered (sport, day trips, shows at night). At Club Med, it is all about having fun and socializing with the staff and other GM, and pictures of people laughing, chatting loudly and flirting (Club Med villages are also famous for that) came to my mind. But the most touching remnant of that happy era, the one thing that allowed us to understand what had happened to this village, we found it in a shack, probably dedicated to nautical activities, where a message was still readable on a billboard: “End of season, Saturday 6th of july 1991. Welcome to the new boss, I wish you and your team a very good season 92 in that lovely village of Sveti”, signed Aldo. Followed by a post scriptum: “Good luck to you, may your season be longer than ours!” The Balkan war. Of course. Why terminating the season in the middle of summer, if not for a life-threatening emergency? Aldo left the island with his team because Montenegro, faithful to the former federation of Yougoslavia, was starting a war against secessionist Croatia, a war that was going to last 10 years and cause the death of around 140 000 people. Club Med never returned to Sveti Marko. While I clearly expected to see traces of the war during my trip to Montenegro and neighboring countries, I surely didn’t expect to find a ghost holiday village, such a vibrant remnant of a bygone age, where Club Med was the undisputed leader of club hotels in France and where Montenegro was called Yougoslavia.